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In law, the right of peremptory challenge is a right in jury selection for the attorneys to reject a certain number of potential jurors without stating a reason. Other potential jurors may be challenged for cause, i.e. by giving a good reason why they might be unable to reach a fair verdict, but the challenge will be considered by the presiding judge and may be denied.
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court ruling that a prosecutor's use of a peremptory challenge in a criminal case—the dismissal of jurors without stating a valid cause for doing so—may not be used to exclude jurors based solely on their race.
Kentucky (1986) that prosecutors cannot make peremptory challenges based on race, but did not address whether defendants could use them. [2] The court had already ruled in Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Company (1991) that the Batson prohibition also applies to civil litigants because they are state actors during the jury selection process. [3]
Powers v. Ohio, 499 U.S. 400 (1991), was a United States Supreme Court case that re-examined the Batson Challenge. [1] Established by Batson v.Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), the Batson Challenge [2] prohibits jury selectors from using peremptory challenges on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, and sex.
The second option is a peremptory challenge, where an attorney can exclude a juror without stating any reason. While challenges for cause are unlimited, attorneys have a limited number of peremptory challenges, sometimes as few as four, although 10 is more common in non-capital felony cases. [4]
In Hernandez, the Supreme Court had to decide whether the peremptory exclusion of two Hispanic jurors was tantamount to exclusion because of race—and therefore violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution.The case is recognized as expanding a Batson challenge to a peremptory strike based on a juror's ethnicity. [1]
Peremptory challenges have a long history in the common law. In the United States they have been allowed by statute in federal criminal trials since 1790. States are generally free to legislate their own rules and procedures for peremptory challenges as long as they don't violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In other ...
The judge deemed the challenge to be based on discriminatory factors and allowed the juror to be seated. [1] Rivera appealed, arguing that the trial judge erred in dismissing the peremptory challenge. The Illinois Supreme Court remanded the case for the trial court to explain why the peremptory challenge in question was discriminatory. The ...